The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

(this is raw unedited text transcribed directly from the audio)

Dr. Kenner:      Alice, you’re having some difficulty with romance I hear?

Alice:               Yes.

Dr. Kenner:      Tell me what happened.

Alice:               I’m trying not to cry. I was married for almost 10 years and we had had problems through the marriage. My husband had a son from a prior marriage that had caused some trouble and he didn’t like the way I dealt with his son, because his son did not respect me. I tried to make him respect me and I wasn’t mean to him, it’s just I would talk to him and try to redirect him and my husband did not like that. Anyway, I was still willing to work on the marriage and my husband decided that was not going to work. At this point, we are almost done with the divorce and it’s been a whole year in the making. It’s been a long year. He’s done a lot of things to me. Financially, personally, a lot of things. I’m just having trouble starting over. How do you start over after you’ve loved someone for that long and loved them so deeply and got hurt so badly? I mean, I’m trying to even love myself again. Because I feel like I lost that. I feel like something had to be wrong with me.

Dr. Kenner:      So it sounds like you’re blaming yourself – if only I had, why didn’t I, and you’re beating up on yourself that way? 

Alice:               To a point. I thought the whole situation, the whole marriage over, and the only thing I can figure I did wrong that maybe I shouldn’t have tried to correct his son the way I did. 

Dr. Kenner:      Well, then it sounds like you have a very good report card for yourself, if that’s the only thing, if you look at it from that perspective?

Alice:               I’ve tried to look at everything. I feel like I was a good wife to him. I always put him first, before even myself.

Dr. Kenner:      Oh, maybe that’s why you’re having a little bit of difficulty loving yourself?

Alice:               Could be. But I felt like that was what you were supposed to, when you were in a committed relationship. You put the first and they put you first.

Dr. Kenner:      But then neither of you are first with yourselves, right? And what you want to do in a relationship is not lose yourself and be in the shadows of the other person. Who wins? If you’re always doing something for him, and he’s always doing something for you, then who gets lost in the mix? Both of you. One of the things you can take away from this is partly to recoup yourself, to restart yourself, is that you want to learn that putting yourself first doesn’t mean that you can’t have an incredibly wonderful relationship moving forward, and it would be even better, because if you love yourself and never abandon yourself in a relationship, never treat yourself as a second class citizen, never put yourself in the shadows, then you’ll even be more compatible, because you’ll be honest with him. For example, let’s say that you wanted to have a hobby that was a reasonable hobby to have, and he didn’t want you to have that hobby, or he didn’t – you’re laughing. Is that the case?

Alice:               It’s part of what happened too. My heart is in rescuing animals, and he told me that the ones that were mine, I go for the special needs ones because they just pull at my heart more, and they don’t get adopted as easily. And he told me that they should have been put down, because there was a reason they were homeless. And he didn’t want me to foster and have them at the house, so yeah, that’s …

Dr. Kenner:      That’s a tricky one, because some hobbies – if it were that you wanted to work at an animal rescue place, or let’s say that you wanted to go into veterinary medicine and try to rescue them even biologically, to save them, if that was your passion in life and you want to be able to pursue that, if you’re bringing it into the house, then it becomes a problem. Then that does affect both of your lives – his life including – so it’s not that you would need to give it up, but you do want to find passions in your life. Now you can do it, right? Because, are you living on your own now?

Alice:               Yes, I am.

Dr. Kenner:      One of the things would be, one of the lifelines back to enjoying your own life is to find a hobby for yourself. Also, are you working or were you a stay at home mom?

Alice:               No, I was working. I still am.

Dr. Kenner:      You still are. Are you enjoying your work?

Alice:               It’s all right. There’s a problem, he and I both work at the same place.

Dr. Kenner:      That is a problem. How often do you see him?

Alice:               Maybe once a week. I’ve started parking in a different spot because we work at the same plant site and everything and I’ve changed my routine to where I come in earlier and leave later and I don’t go to lunch at the same time, that sort of thing. I try not to run into him.

Dr. Kenner:      That’s self-respecting. That’s very good for you. If you’re capable of starting to rearrange your life so it’s less torture for you … if you could change jobs – that may not be feasible – that’s another possibility. If you like the type of work you do and then you may not want to change jobs?

Alice:               I pretty much like where I am, and I’ve been there nine years and he’s been there 10 so I don’t really think either one of us are going to leave. 

Dr. Kenner:      Here are the key things – number one is, you never want to lose yourself in a relationship. You do have to compromise on a few things, like my husband wanted a lot of animals. You guys would have been compatible. We had three dogs and they’ve passed on because we’ve been married many years, but we decided not to have any more pets. He got a little bit of what he likes and I got a little bit of what I like. There are compromises that way, but if he were passionate about being a veterinarian and I told him I never wanted him to handle animals, we are incompatible. That’s not fair. He has a right to pursue his career. The key thing you want to know is not to lose yourself in any relationship, and the way not to lose yourself is to think about the things that you value most and it may be working with animals. It may be things that you’ve never thought of doing. What are some other hobbies you might like? Things you’ve never tried but thought of trying.

Alice:               It’s going to take a little bit of trying to really discover them. I know I’ve been into a little bit of sewing and crochet.

Dr. Kenner:      There may be those activities. If you want to meet somebody, I’ll throw out one possibility – dance. Ballroom dancing. If you don’t like it, don’t even touch it, but it’s a wonderful way to meet people if you’re wanting to restart your own life. But you want to have values in your life. I mean, the goodies, the hobbies, the things that interest you, that make your day interesting. Thank you so much for calling.